Stratfor: US Attempts Baghdad Strategy in Belgrade Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Stratfor Commentary 2018 GMT, 990616 http://www.stratfor.com/ U.S. Attempts to Apply Baghdad Strategy to Belgrade The Yugoslav daily newspaper Vecernje Novosti accused Robert Gelbard, U.S. special envoy for the Balkans, of cooperating with Serb opposition parties to overthrow the Milosevic regime. The newspaper cited a source from last week's meeting of the Alliance for Change, who said Gelbard "promised to ensure nine million U.S. dollars for overthrowing the Belgrade regime." This claim is neither surprising nor extraordinary, as there is some additional evidence available suggesting that the U.S. is attempting exactly the same strategy in Yugoslavia that it has attempted in Iraq. According to London's The Guardian newspaper, last weekend a "senior State Department official met secretly in Montenegro with several key Serbian democratic figures and urged them to press ahead with trying to remove Mr. Milosevic." The unnamed official reportedly told the assembled Alliance for Change members, "We will do all we can to help you, but it's up to you to get rid of the regime." According to Rome's La Repubblica newspaper, the U.S. official was accompanied by former Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Panic. La Repubblica's sources claimed that the visit took the Alliance for Change delegates by surprise - so much so that several of the democratic activists went public with the incident rather than wait for Serbian intelligence to report the incident for its propaganda value. The Alliance for Change, a coalition of some 30 parties and organizations and prominent democratic activists lobbying for the abolition of martial law and the holding of early democratic elections in Yugoslavia, were meeting June 12 in Montenegro to coordinate strategy. As Stratfor reported on June 16, the Montenegrin government appears to be holding back on independence moves, possibly at the request of NATO and the West. Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, reportedly present at the secret meeting with the U.S. official, has argued that the situation in Montenegro and Yugoslavia is too unstable at the present to hold a resolution on independence. In the meantime, Djukanovic has received assurances of significant Western aid, and has been under pressure to help effect democratic change in Yugoslavia from within the federation. The U.S. is reportedly planning to establish television stations in Montenegro and Bosnia, to beam a pro-democracy message into Serbia. It is also apparently attempting to actively support or even fund the Serbian democratic opposition. This is a similar strategy to that being employed by the U.S. against Iraqi President Saddam Hussien. However, while it carries the same potential stigma as the Iraq effort - how democratic is a movement funded by outside powers bent on toppling a particular regime? - it may have a slightly better chance of success than the Iraq effort. There is a broad, established opposition to Milosevic in Yugoslavia, and the institutional framework - other than coup d'etat or civil war - for his removal from power. Milosevic's secret service is not as all-pervasive and brutal as that of Hussein. And Milosevic is not a dictator - he relies on the support of a group of individuals and factions, all elected, each with their own power bases, and some no longer all that satisfied with Milosevic. Yet as with Hussein, there is no guarantee that Milosevic's successor will be any more amenable to Western desires, particularly if that successor rises in reaction to, rather than by means of, Western political machinations. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nyteeu-06.19.99-05:49:19-18833